Make your floating goldfish pellets sink!

I read this tip on a couple of forums but I didn't believe until I tried it! Don't buy expensive sinking pellets till you have read and tied this technique.

The gold fish pellets I bought with our tank is the Marine Master Goldfish Granules. The ingredients are fish meal, shrimp meal, wheat germ, wheat flour, soybean meal, yeast, vitamins, organic minerals, natural colouring. All the goodness your growing pets need.

These pellets float no matter how long you soak them. I have tried soaking them over 24 hours and almost 99% percent of the pellets stayed at the top. The issue with floating pellets is that my goldfish swallow a lot of air when eating these pellets and regularly have swim bladder problems.  It makes them swim lopsided and looks very uncomfortable. Fasting them for 2-3 days generally clears up this problem but I didn't want them to regularly do this.

Another issue that that some of my fancy goldfish like the Black Moors or Telescope-Eye Goldfish would find it very hard to see the floating pellets and would go hungry. These fish prefer food that sits at the bottom of the tank as they can hunt for it easily. Sinking pellets are normally 2-3 times more expensive than the floating variety and are not guaranteed to sink! Quite a few online aquarium stores have even put in notes retracting the manufacturers statement [See here].



If you take one of the floating pellets in your fingers and crush it, you will notice that center is composed of a pocket of air which does not leak out even after soaking. However if you add this crushed pellet to your tank it immediately sinks.This indicates that problem is with the manufacturing process rather than the food itself.

Most tips recommend that you soak the pellets and then squeeze them gently to push out the air pocket. Adding these pellets to your tank will make them sink immediately.

However I prefer the quick and easy method to dislodge the air pocket shown in the Youtube video below.

 

  

Basically you take a syringe and add your floating pellets. Then you suck in some tank water, then cover the tip of the syringe with your thumb and pull to create a vacuum. This forces air pocket to be sucked out of the food and replaced by water. And Yes, the effect is instant!